Dec. 23, 1910 — First naval officer designated for flight training, Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson, is ordered to report to the Glenn H. Curtiss Aviation Camp at North Island. He reaches there the next month.

May 8, 1911 — Navy orders its first airplane. This decision marks the official birth of U.S. naval aviation.

May 22, 1912 — The Marine Corps’ first pilot, 1st Lt. Alfred A. Cunningham, reports to the Naval Academy for “duty in connection with aviation” and later does flight instruction. Recognized as the official start of Marine aviation.

April 1, 1916 — The Coast Guard’s first aviator, Lt. Elmer Stone, is assigned to naval aviation school in Pensacola, Fla.

CORONADO  It was January 1911, and what’s now North Island Naval Air Station was still separated from the mainland by water. The first naval aviator reported to San Diego to learn how to fly.

Nearly a century later, the Navy is planning a marathon celebration of its flight roots starting in January. The Naval Air Forces command, with headquarters at North Island, has formed a centennial task force, activated a reserve captain to coordinate the events and dedicated five service members to the effort.

“Some young, enterprising people 100 years ago thought it was important enough to buy an airplane and experiment with it out here,” said Capt. Rich Dann, executive director of the task force. “It paid big dividends.”

Three decades later, for example, Navy air power played a pivotal role in defeating the enemy in the Pacific during World War II.

Commemorative celebrations will kick off with a gala aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego Bay. More festivities are planned throughout next year.

The 100th anniversary of Marine Corps aviation is in 2012, and the Coast Guard’s is in 2016. Both services will begin celebrating with the Navy because pilots for all three branches get their wings from the same flight school in Pensacola, Fla.

A century of Navy aviation likely will be the theme of hundreds of air shows, conventions, festivals and flyovers that occur across the country in 2011. The North Island-based task force will help organize them and, when finalized, the information will be posted at centennial.ahf.nmci.navy.mil.

The Navy is devoting $46,000 monthly in staff time for the centennial planning effort through at least January. Other costs include a $50,000 travel budget and what’s been described as a minimal cost to choose historical paint designs for 18 airplanes scheduled to be repainted.

The upcoming Navy anniversary means something to people other than fliers. The concentration of naval aviation in San Diego helped put the area on the map.

Pioneering pilot Charles Lindbergh used the North Island airfield for practice and, in 1927, to launch the first leg of his storied journey to St. Louis and then New York and Paris.

Decades later, the 1986 Tom Cruise movie about Navy jet pilots at the Miramar “Top Gun” school cemented San Diego’s status in the modern public eye as the heartbeat of naval aviation.

“Doesn’t everybody love Tom Cruise and all that? That all started over at North Island,” said John Fry, commander of the Association of Naval Aviation’s San Diego squadron.

Fry was never a pilot, never even served in the Navy. But as a lover of history and Navy lore, Fry finds his imagination captured by the story of those first flights.

“It was a big deal here in 1911. Everybody was excited,” said Fry, who recently wrote an article in his association’s newsletter about the early days at North Island.